


B For Beloved

by MorganMacCallum



Series: Alphabet Series [2]
Category: Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro
Genre: Detective Noir, yako alone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 15:38:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18076172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganMacCallum/pseuds/MorganMacCallum
Summary: After her recovery from hospital, Yako is invited to a murder mystery night to solve the murder of the mansion's owner, only to come across a real murder in the process.





	1. Chapter 1

When Yako stood in the entrance hall of the White Rose Mansion, she thought it rather tacky with dark oak walls and vaulted ceilings decorated in elaborate rich colours, the floor a marbled seventies pattern of various shades of beige covered by deep red rugs of multiple warm colours and intriguing patterns that contrasted the floor underneath. Ancient paintings of family members and friends were hung on the walls, eyes staring down at common guests like ants beneath their feet and Yako could feel the smugness in the air as she breathed in the perfume odour of something sweet and delicate, like a gentle caress.

Tonight, somebody would be murdered in this household, and there was nothing any of them could do about it. Only Yako, who had accepted the invite, could hunt down the killer before he struck like the lunge of a snake towards its prey. She stood rigid at the doorway as she heard the clack of heels echoing through the entrance hall, staring up at the grand wooden staircase. From the left side came a woman in a beautiful golden gown, a slight trail of a patterned navy and golden silk following behind her.

“Ah, detective, I’m so glad to see you!” She glided down the stairs with a grace Yako could only envy, like a ghost drifting across the floor, before reaching for her and offering her an embrace; something that made Yako bristle. “I was worried you would refuse our invitation, having crimes to solve and all that.”

“That’s quite alright, I have been given some time off to recover.” She responded politely, the heat of the woman’s hands against her arms burning through the sleeves of her dress. She felt severely underdressed for the set.

“Oh yes we heard about it on the news, gave me and my husband quite the shock. We’re big fans of yours, it was quite horrifying to think a girl your age could die under such circumstances. And to think that the criminal escaped while you were comatose as well.”

“Yes, well, had I been conscious he would not have escaped so easily.” She tried not to cringe at the memory, reaching up to rest her hand over the fresh scar on her forehead. She had purposefully designed the wig to cover up the lumpy mess, but she could not ignore it because eventually the wig would come off.

“Quite right, detective.” She responded with a nod. “Oh! Where are my manners.” She let Yako go and brought out a hand for her to shake. “I’m Elizabeth Barkwell, I’m the mistress of the house.”

Yako took the hand and shook it firmly. There was a slight shake in Elizabeth’s movements which Yako noticed immediately, although she did not comment on.

“Let me introduce you to the others. You’re the last one here as was planned.”

“Oh dear, I hate to be late.”

Elizabeth guided Yako to a large dining room area where everyone was already seated at the dining table, the food waiting to be served. Yako’s stomach grumbled in protest, the meal she had before coming to the mansion not being nearly enough to satisfy her hunger; not that she suspected anything would satisfy her bottomless stomach.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is our detective of the night Miss Yako Katsuragi.” There was a general look of questioning amongst the people involved, eyeing her up like she was a lump of meat before them and she tried not to shift under their gazes, keeping her eyes firmly ahead and her smile rigid on her face.

One man stood up. He looked to be quite young, in his early 20s (although Yako learned not to trust her vision on such things), with combed back ginger hair and a hook nose. His tie was slightly crooked to the right and his suit a touch too large for him.

“Miss Katsuragi, it’s a pleasure to meet you I’ve heard many things about you.” The others nodded amongst themselves. Yako noticed the seat next to him was clear and three question marks were written on the piece of card set out in front of it. She imagined it was where she was supposed to sit.

“The pleasure is all mine. I am glad to have been invited to such an event.” She responded with a smile as the man offered her the seat, drawing out the chair. She did her best to be as graceful as Elizabeth as she sat down, tucking her dress underneath her as she sat. She thought herself rather successful in it as a servant poured red wine for her.

“A toast to tonight.” The man on the opposite side of the table from Elizabeth raised his glass. He was a portly man with a balding head and a great, thick moustache. Based upon where he was sitting, Yako imagined that he was Elizabeth’s husband.

“To tonight.” Everyone raised their glasses.

Yako was rather proud of herself for restraining the urge to devour everything in sight, although she had successfully eaten all of the food given to her plus seconds. She considered thirds but forced herself back, not wanting to be known by the name ‘pig detective’ any longer than she had to be.

When the meal was done everyone went into the billiards room. Yako noticed how the walls were painted green when they were not covered in wooden panels, and how various photographs of large groups of people dotted the walls. She noted the dates and the people within, seeing Elizabeth’s husband, who she learned was Keith, in many of the pictures. The writing was difficult for her to read, but she understood based upon the trophies that they were celebrating a championship of sorts.

“My father is an expert in billiards. He used to go to contests all the time.” Keith and Elizabeth had two children that were taking part in the event, the third too young to participate. They were twins, with the first being called Harry and the second being Benjamin; although he preferred to be called Ben. She was certain that it was Ben that was speaking to her in that moment and nodded.

“My English reading is dreadful when it comes to handwritten notes, but I figured your father was a fan.” She smiled up at him. Both he and his sibling shared the same Roman nose as their mother and square jaw as their father, both with dark hair and dark eyes standing a good foot over her. “Did he stop?”

“After he married my mother.” Ben shrugged. “Got in the way of helping to raise us, travelling all over the world doing such things.”

“Ah.” She wondered whether Keith was resentful of such a thing. Enough to murder, she wondered. She knew that Dusan did not murder on his own if he could avoid it, he would encourage someone else to kill for him, which meant that the victim, and the perpetrator, would be someone currently in the room. She frowned, disliking suspicions being drawn so early on. She did not like to believe the worst in people.

“You look tense.”

“Just thinking of what will happen tonight.”

There was a scream. Fearing the worst, Yako immediately ran ahead in the direction of the scream. One of the maids was clutching onto a jug for dear life at Keith’s dead body. She knelt down and checked his pulse. This was not the true murder, but the fictional murder. She let out a sigh of relief, it had not happened yet.

Keith was lying face down at the base of the stairs, a small puddle of blood underneath him. She knew it to be fake blood, seeing that it was too bright to be real blood. Perhaps a corn starch mixed with red food dye.

Elizabeth promptly fainted upon seeing her husband at the base of the stairs.

“It looks like he fell and struck his head.” She began. She looked to the maid. “Did you see anyone at the top of the stairs?”

“I-I-I don’t know, maybe.” She stammered out, her eyes wide. She appeared to be enjoying herself. The issue with such games was that she could not use her usual methods of identifying deception here. She would have to tread carefully. “I saw a figure.” The maid finally said.

“Can you describe them for me.”

“They were tall and had pale hair.”

And everyone had been in the billiard’s room when Keith had quite literally dropped dead. The only suspects, then, would be the servants that were not in the room or another guest that had not been invited. Her mind suggested Dusan in an instant, but she said nothing. It was too late to make assumptions.

She checked her pocket watch.

“Dead at 7:46. Everyone make note of that.” Someone took out a pen and paper and wrote it down. “The first thing we’ll have to do is investigate the house for a potential intruder. It’s entirely possible that somebody broke in. Go in twos so if anyone goes missing we’ll know what happened. I’m assigning you specific areas to check. You have fifteen minutes to investigate for signs of a potential break in.”

“Right.” She heard, although she did not look up to see who had said it.

“Somebody bring Miss Elizabeth to a chair. I need to ask her a few questions.”

When Elizabeth ended her performance everyone else had finished their investigation and brought about a simple conclusion: nobody was to be found in the house that was not already there. There was, at least for now, no thirteenth guest. Yako did not let go of her suspicions however.

“Miss Elizabeth? I’m going to need to ask you if your husband had any enemies.”

“Y-yes, of course he did.” She stammered out. Yako had told the other guests to wait in the billiard’s room so that she could be left alone with Elizabeth, certain that as a part of the game somebody in the room would have reason to kill Keith.

“Can you tell me if anyone in the billiard’s room, or if any of the servants, had reason to kill him?”

“Surely you don’t suspect it was one of us. We were all together when he died.”

“That though it may be, we cannot let go of any possibilities.” She affirmed with a nod. Elizabeth seemed to think for a moment, her frown deepening.

“I guess… I guess everyone had a little bit of a reason to dislike my husband. He was… not the most pleasant person. But he wasn’t so cruel as to have murder justified!”

“Murder is seldom justified, Miss Elizabeth.” She responded. “But can you write me a list of all the reasons why the guests and the servants may have wanted to kill your husband. Any reason, no matter how small, will do.”

The servants were, of course, the main suspects having no alibi that she could confirm beyond being with themselves. There were five servants in total: two serving maids, two footmen, and one butler. One of the serving maids was the person that found the body and had been witnessed already by the guests to have been passing through the billiard’s room on the way to next room over before she witnessed the body.

The other serving woman was in the kitchen and still in the kitchen when Yako went to see her, seen by the butler and one of the footmen passing through. The final footman was tall with pale hair, and was last seen in the upstairs bedroom changing just after the murder.

He confessed to everything in no time. It was a shockingly simple reveal; he had no alibi and had been witnessed by the serving maid at the top of the stairs. He had even created an entire back story regarding his reasons behind killing Keith, including being his illegitimate son between the man and a former servant that was tossed out like garbage the moment he discovered she was pregnant. Yako let him yammer on as she tied his hands.

As they congratulated Yako on solving the murder so quickly Yako began to notice that the perpetrator was acting incredibly unusual. His breathing was rapid, and he was struggling to speak, his skin clammy and sweating increasingly.

“Are you okay?” She asked just as he collapsed. “Call a doctor.”

He did not wake from his coma. The phone lines were disconnected, and when they tried to reach their cars it was found that the wheels had been slashed and the batteries removed. In a matter of hours, Dusan had swept down like a plague and isolated them.

There was no signal on her phone no matter where she went in the house, Elizabeth admitted that due to the location there was always issues regarding signal, with the nearest town being at least ten miles away. The nearest village was five miles away. It was suggested that somebody walk to the next village to contact the police. Benjamin went with his brother and they walked into the night together. Yako had a feeling that it would be a long time before they came back.

‘It takes the average person two hours to walk five mile…’ She would have offered to have gone herself, but she was needed on the crime scene.

“No signs of stab wounds or bullet holes…” She mumbled to herself. “He was fine until the end of the game then he began to show symptoms of sweating, slurred speech, and struggled to breathe…” She took out her notebook and began to write down such thoughts. In her mind, she knew it to be some sort of poison, although she did not know what poison could be so efficient.

Unless he was poisoned before he was caught. She needed to know what he had interacted with before she could get any clue as to what killed him and, possibly, who killed him. All she knew was that Dusan had something to do with it, and that he was already lurking in the house.

‘The car tyres have been slashed, the batteries removed, and the phone lines are dead. He must have done it between the time we were in the dining room and the billiard’s room… which means the batteries are nearby.’ She did not hear any cars driving off, so they had to be close by. ‘But they would be rendered useless.’ She thought of water and how soaking them in water might make them useless; it would be the most convenient way to isolate them.

“Had anyone seen this man prior to his death?” One of the maid’s raised her hand. She pointed her pen at the maid.

“Um… we talked for a moment before he went upstairs to get changed. There was a strange stain on his sleeve that was kind of dark… like blackcurrant juice. He wanted to change out of it before the main performance which was why he was up there.”

Like blackcurrant juice? The thought intrigued Yako who immediately went upstairs to the room he changed in. It was his actual living quarters and Yako could see the original shirt tossed onto the bed. When she checked the sleeve, she could see a slight purple stain on his shirt sleeve just along the rim. What could cause that which would not already be on his hand? Or had he washed his hand of the strange purple substance and simply not noticed that it ruined his shirt in the process?

There was a glass of water on the counter next to his bed. Yako pulled on a glove and picked up the glass, sniffing it.

‘There it is again.’ The smell that rang strong in the hallway, a sweet and delicate smell; a perfume of sorts. ‘This will have to be tested when the police get here.’ She noticed how the water was slightly purple as well. ‘This is likely the cause of the stain as well as the poison.’

Peter, as she learned his name was, was ferried away two and a half hours later. Yako was put on the case immediately, and when she came back with the glass there were only Peter’s fingerprints on it. Inside the water was the poison that killed him.

The killer was in the nearby area, she was certain, so she stayed in the mansion as the police searched the surrounding area for the perpetrator. She already knew that Dusan would not allow himself to be found so easily as she took to rummaging through Peter’s personal things.

She found what she was looking for in record time. A reward was in order, she thought, as she went through secret letters between Peter and a pen pal that he was engaging with. Peter was depressed, worried that he would never get far in life and he was destined to play the role of a servant for the rest of his life. He talked to his pen pal about his troubles often, and his pen pal wrote in turn saying that he sympathised with Peter’s plight often feeling trapped in his own right. The last letter was marked three days ago saying that he would come to see Peter in the nearby village for a few drinks.

‘That must have been when he supplied him with the poison.’

The question would be how did Dusan convince Peter to take the poison. This was if he was aware of the fact that he took poison at all. Perhaps Dusan had told him it would help Peter to sleep, or that it would help with his troubles. Or perhaps Peter was entirely ignorant to what had been put in his drink at all. Why even kill Peter at all? That was the issue with Dusan; little of what he did made sense.

“Detective, we’ve found something!”

A locket Yako knew all too well was hanging from one of the trees, laughing at her. She resisted the urge to kick at the dirt as it was removed from the tree branch and handed to her.

“Looks like our perp came this way.”

“Or this was planted.”

“Planted?”

“He wants us to go this way.” She went into her jacket pocket and pulled out her sewing kit, slipping out a needle and stabbing through the tiny hole in the back, the secret door pinging open. As she suspected, there was a note inside.

There were, however, no clues. Only a question:

“Enjoy your holiday?” Her three-week coma was an unpleasant experience of fading in and out of consciousness with a dull pain causing her constant agony as she tried to break free from the slumber she had been forced into. Dusan had been the one to put her in such a coma. She had not enjoyed it at all. “Smug bastard.”

“What’s it say, Miss Katsuragi?” She handed to the officer.

“It means the perpetrator is someone I know.”

It was too soon to say that Peter had killed himself, but she heard the whispers as they pursued the killer with dogs, the scent on the locket. They searched the entire forest but found nothing, which meant that, somehow, Dusan was long gone. She saw the road up ahead and suspected that a car had been waiting for him there.

The poison came back as Belladonna. The plant was found in the green house amongst other poisonous plants and it was quickly noticed how the plant lacked the usual round black berries. Dusan did not have to go far to find his weapon of choice.

‘However…’ There was still the matter of the stain on Peter’s shirt. It also came back as matching the plant, stains from the berries. How had it gotten there, and did it suggest that Peter had plucked the berries himself? Or perhaps it was something Dusan had put there to purposefully confuse Yako? ‘Well he's certainly succeeding in that matter…’

The batteries were found in the end. They were tucked away in the forest and ruined by dirt and rain which had come over the mansion the next day. He isolated them just long enough for him to escape, knowing that help would be called for eventually, but why let the brothers escape to call for help? It was just as easy for him to kill them and render them isolated for even longer?

‘Unless his intentions were solely to delay.’ He wanted to delay help not only long enough to escape but long enough to kill Peter. Was he worried that Peter would be able to tell his face from a crowd and allow him to be caught, so he dealt with the issue?

‘Why get into contact with Peter in the first place?’ It was the true question, she thought that afternoon, and one she did not have an immediate answer to as she took her seat in the office. The letters were spread out in front of her, Dusan’s handwriting shining proudly back at her. There had to be a clue in the words, Dusan would not leave it for her if he did not have something he wanted for her to find out. ‘But what?’

They had started communicating roughly three months ago where Dusan stated that he was a Psychology student in London taking a break over the summer holidays to see his family in the countryside. He talked about family issues with his mother and father intending to get divorced, and having to take care of his little brother every day because his parents were often too busy to do it themselves.

She knew it all to be lies. Three months ago Dusan was Vincent Dolores and he was under the guise of a priest in a church. He had called a hit man to brutally murder a man called Dennis who he had known from his time in a Soviet Union orphanage. He then escaped after shooting Yako and his whereabouts were unknown until he decided three days ago to offer an invite to Yako to the White Rose Mansion murder mystery party.

‘He must have heard about it from Peter…’ But how did he know Yako was invited? Peter must have gone over the guest list and suggested that the lady of the house had invited her, and he must have been determined to get her to come so sent her a letter of his own. ‘Would Peter have still died if I didn’t come?’

It was a question that weighed down on her as she poured herself another cup of coffee with a heavy sigh. She wondered whether her very presence was what triggered the murder, or if Peter would have died regardless and that the murder would have been left to someone else; a mystery unsolved.

‘Or perhaps they would have thought it suicide.’ It was what others had suggested, but she was determined to believe that Peter was an unwilling victim in his own death. She just needed to prove it.

The meeting. They had met in the nearby village’s pub for a few drinks, surely someone had seen Dusan in that pub that evening. She downed her coffee and stood up. It was not much, but it was a good place to start.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some pieces are put together

“The dosage in the water was too low to actually kill him.” She was told as she left her office, setting her cup on the side counter by the sink.

“Huh?” She failed to process what case he was referring to initially, blinking stupidly as their chemical’s expert batted her across the head.

“Your White Rose Mansion case.”

“Oh! Right!” She scratched at her head, embarrassed by her confusion. “So, you’re saying the poison wasn’t in the water?”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t in the water, I’m saying it was too low to kill him. There were traces of atropine inside, however. He would have noticed the taste right away, it’s incredibly bitter.”

Perhaps that was why he had not drunk the full glass of water, she thought, as the chemical’s expert continued to talk. She was told that atropine was, in general, not able to be absorbed into water except when in a sulphur salt form, and even then, the foul taste would have kept Peter away.

“You’ll have to check all over that house for the main cause.”

Belldonna, whilst potent, was not found in a high enough level in his body either. She was told that traces of the poison could vanish in a matter of two hours after death, and when she looked at his pale corpse on the autopsy table with his organs exposed she could not help but wonder just what had ended him.

“At least you were right in saying it was a poison. We found high levels of Methanol in his system.”

“Methanol?”

“Symptoms generally show up between twelve and twenty-four hours after contact, by which time he was a dead man walking.”

“So, the attacker came into contact with him before the party even began?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“But then what about the atropine?” She asked before she left the room.

“Maybe he was trying to kill himself.” It made as much sense as everything else in the case.

The pub was done up in a 1930s fashion with similar wood panelling as the White Rose Mansion, photographs on the wall and trophies set up in cabinets by the seats of dark oak and red, the floor slightly sticky as she walked towards the counter. There stood a man a good six feet tall with bulging shoulders barely held back by a dark button up shirt, looking down at her with beady eyes.

“What can I get you?” She set a picture of Peter out in front of him.

“I was told that Peter Falkins came to your pub three days ago to meet up with a friend. Do you recall anything about this friend?” He slipped the photograph off the counter and stared at it for some time.

“Peter usually came with friends.”

“Anything at all?” He did not speak, simply staring at the picture. “Sir-,”

“Black hair.” He set the picture down. “His friend was tall and had curly black hair. I only noticed him because he did not come by often. In fact, I think it was his first time there. He ordered the first round.”

“Can you recall what he ordered?”

He glanced back at the bar, eyes rolling over the drinks before he moved to pick up a bottle, handing it to her.

“He bought an entire bottle of Captain Morgans. Spiced. They had half the bottle between them before they left.”

“When did they leave?”

“Around midnight.”

“Any idea where they might have gone?”

“Probably to the hotel just across the street.” She set the drink in front of him with a smile. She would not be drinking until she caught the criminal herself.

The receptionist was a pleasant woman with dyed blonde hair and cat eye glasses. She radiated sunshine and her smile was almost blinding in its brightness, added to by the fluorescent lights and her certainly bleached teeth. Having never felt particularly comfortable with her own teeth, Yako merely smiled back. The grin became strained when Yako showed her badge.

“I’m here regarding one of your guests who stayed here three days ago.” She began. “Tall with dark hair, he would have come by at some point with this man.” She showed the receptionist the picture of Peter. She could see recognition in the woman’s eyes and knew she had hit the nail on the head. “Can you tell me which room belonged to this man.”

“Hold on…” She opened a red address book next to her, going through it. “Douglas Fairheart. He moved in to stay about a week ago and left the following morning.”

“May I see the room anyhow?”

“I’m afraid you can’t, somebody’s staying in there right now.”

“I see…” She tried not to let her frustration show, the receptionist was already going above what her work probably paid her for. She glanced up and noticed the camera. Somebody out there was watching, which meant that somebody had footage. “I’ll come back later.”

Dusan was not as careful as he had been last time, although she wondered if that was intentional on his part, mocking her for her inability to catch him last time. Like smoke through her fingers, he was a wisp just out of her grasp. She would learn to capture smoke, however, she would not allow him to continue his escape as long as she stood.

She spent most of her free time trying to understand why Dusan targeted Peter of all people. He had obviously been in contact with him before he decided to have Dennis killed, and had been writing with him at least three months before he considered such a deed. Why show himself to Peter, unless it was to kill him?

‘What did Peter learn that made him a target in the first place?’ What was the final straw for Dusan that made him decide that it was worth killing him? ‘What is the motive?’

Motives were what generally drove Yako. She could understand the how’s and what’s of almost every case with no struggle, but the why’s were what brought her to the more challenging cases; she was driven to understand the human mind and the actions behind each movement. She wanted to pluck out the human brain and read into each chemical reaction that drove one human being to kill another.

“What’s on your mind, Katsuragi?” She jumped, forced out of her thoughts. Behind her stood a fellow detective, and a woman she quite admired, by the name of Hayley.

Hayley was a woman that Yako aspired to be with a way of moving around the court that radiated a confidence Yako solely lacked if only because crowds made her nervous.

“I’m thinking of the culprit.” She had confessed to the message being from Dusan not long after she had uncovered the note, certain that the more people who knew about him the better it would be, and a manhunt was on the way in searching for him in the local area with little success so far.

“You think about him a lot.” She raised a brow, and Hayley giggled. “You do. You get this far away look in your eyes and begin tapping your chin. You also mumble a lot.”

“I-I do?” Her voice squeaked at the concept, quickly covering her mouth.

“I don’t blame you. He did shoot you in the head after dancing circles around you. I’d be determined to catch him as well.” Yako finally let out a sigh between her hands, her shoulders slumping.

“It’s not just that.” She began. “I don’t understand his motive. He doesn’t seem to have any motive at all, I cannot find any connections between Peter and Dusan before the pen pal letters began, and no traces of any connections within the immediate family or friend circle either.”

“Seems to be like a pointless murder to you?”

“For now.” Hayley smiled then.

“Perhaps you are the motive.”

“What?”

“Think about it this way. Three days ago, you received a letter from Dusan specifically inviting you to the mansion, then he poisons somebody a day before your arrival, so they are destined to die just as your time there ends. It sounds like he purposefully set it up so that you would be the first detective on the crime scene.”

“That’s-,”

“The motive is often shockingly simple.” Hayley began. “In this case it’s clear to me he wants your attention. He’s dancing around you going ‘look at me look at me’, and now he has your attention he wants you to find him.”

“Oh great, a killer has a crush on me.”

“A crush would be an understatement. I’d prefer to say… obsession.” She grinned, patting Yako on the back before leaving. “Oh, and we have the camera footage from the hotel now so if you want to check that out you’re free to do so.”

“Right.”

“Just don’t eat us into poverty again.”

“I won’t.” She sighed, drawing her hands down her face before getting up. Her coffee was already cold.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter for now since I want to try and make it longer than five chapters this time around.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this introduction!


End file.
